Spoilers:
- Laptop power normally runs from 30 to 200 watts, however gaming computers can exceed 320 watts.
- 65W is the most typical laptop wattage.
- The actual wattage used by a laptop rarely matches the wattage displayed on the device.
- Laptops utilize 0.34 Watts in Off mode, 0.78 Watts in Sleep mode, 2.45 Watts in Long Idle mode, and 5.91 Watts in Short Idle mode on average.
- Laptops consume an average of 55.45 watt hours (0.055 kWh) per day, 1,686.6 watt hours (1.69 kWh) per month, and 20,238.8 watt hours (20.24 kWh) each year.
- On average, a laptop costs $0.00825 per day, $0.25 per month, and $3.04 per year to run.
Continue reading to learn the full answer to the question: how many watts does a laptop consume? Also, check how laptop power consumption compares to that of common household appliances, calculate your running costs with the Laptop Power Consumption Calculator, and learn how to save money on electricity with 10 simple energy-saving strategies.
Is it true that a laptop consumes a lot of power?
Laptops consume between 20 and 50 watts of power on average. This amount can be reduced by turning on power save mode on laptops, which makes energy use more efficient.
Is it true that charging your laptop increases your electricity bill?
Because they are designed to run on a battery and be more power efficient, laptops, notebooks, and netbooks require less electricity than desktop computers. In addition, laptops rarely have a strong video card and instead rely on integrated graphics, which use less power. The power consumption of a laptop varies depending on the screen size; normally, power consumption ranges from 20 to 100 watts when using the battery. When charging the laptop battery, the power consumption increases by 10% to 20%; we estimate that a 14-15 inch laptop consumes 60 watts when plugged in.
What is the average amount of electricity used by a computer every hour?
If you’ve ever wondered, “How much electricity does a computer use?” we’re afraid there isn’t a straightforward answer. Having said that, we’ll do our best to answer the question here.
Most computers are designed to take up to 400 kilowatts per hour of electricity, but they typically use less.
The average CPU consumes about the same amount of energy per hour as a standard light bulb. A computer with a Pentium-type CPU consumes roughly 100 kWh. With the monitor turned off, this is how it looks. The monitor on your computer usually consumes more power than the processor.
When you turn on your monitor, the amount of electricity used increases. Different computers will consume various amounts of energy. Speakers, printers, displays, and other forms of devices will all require power to operate. Connecting these devices to your computer will also require energy. All of this will have an impact on your electricity usage.
When you launch an application and begin working on your computer or laptop, the same thing happens. Depending on the program you’re using, the amount of electricity your computer consumes will vary. A word processing program, for example, uses less electricity than a computer game. Downloading, uploading, and streaming files will all use more energy than reading a pdf file or doing something else text-based.
As you can see, there are a plethora of reasons why your electricity usage fluctuates. Because of these variables, determining how much electricity your computer consumes is impossible.
Examine the maximum electric capacity of your equipment. That information can be found in the user manuals, on the box your device came in, or by doing a fast Google search. After you’ve totaled those numbers up, calculate the average cost of a kilowatt-hour in your state. These figures will differ from city to city, but the state average will provide you with a reasonable estimate of utilization. Multiply the kilowatt usage by that cost once you have the average cost for your state. This will calculate how much it costs to run your computer for one hour. This final illustration presupposes that your PC is being tested.
Most of the time, you don’t expect much from your computer. It’s most likely powered by electricity, therefore it’ll cost you a lot less than you think. But at the very least, you know how much it will cost.
You may even multiply it by the projected number of hours you use it each day to get an estimate of how much electricity you use on a daily basis.
You can figure out your electricity usage better than we can if you do some research.
In 8 hours, how much electricity does a laptop consume?
Laptops use 0.34 watts in Off mode, 0.78 watts in Sleep mode, 2.45 watts in Long Idle mode, and 5.91 watts in Short Idle mode, on average, each hour, according to a research of 1,084 models.
The most frequent wattage consumption of today’s best-selling laptops is 65W. (max). This laptop would use 32.5 watt hours of electricity per hour if Active mode used half of its power rating (which is close to the findings of my test below).
Assume an average daily usage of 14.3 hours in Off mode, 0.3 hours in sleep mode, and 9.4 hours in combined Idle and high performance modes, similar to ENERGY STAR.
These findings are based on standardized tests done for ENERGY STAR certification on 1,084 computers. Energystar.gov provided the information for the 1,084 computers. As a result, these results apply to the best-performing laptops available.
Off mode consumes less power than Sleep mode. Off mode, on the other hand, consumes more electricity per day than Sleep mode due to the projected period of use in each mode.
Laptops consume 55.45 watt hours of electricity per day on average. However, the most typical consumption is 47.12 watt hours. Laptops use between 6.3 and 230 watt hours a day on average, depending on how they are used.
However, there will be extreme usage situations. However, these findings are based on normal usage of today’s popular computers.
Laptops use an average of 1,686.6 watt hours of electricity every month, with 1,433.33 watt hours being the most prevalent. Laptops utilize anywhere from 191.67 to 7,025 watt hours per month.
When we look at the annual data, the quantity of watts that laptops consume becomes more relevant.
Laptops use an average of 20,238.8 watt hours per year, while 17,200 watt hours is the most prevalent. Each year, laptops consume between 2,300 and 84,300 watt hours of electricity.
The number of watts consumed every year varies a lot. This emphasizes the importance of selecting an energy-efficient, ENERGY STAR-certified notebook.
How many watts my laptop usesa real world test
I measured the real power consumption of my ASUS VivoBook 14 laptop using an energy monitor / smart plug (see out the one I used on Amazon here).
The ASUS VivoBook consumes the following amount of power:
- In Off mode, the power consumption is 0.33 watts.
- In Sleep mode, the power consumption is 3.89 watts.
- While writing on Google Docs, I used 19.6 watts in Active mode.
- While streaming YouTube, the active mode draws 21.5 watts.
- According to the manufacturer, the maximum power usage is 45 watts (I didn’t manage to reach this wattage).
I was merely interested because I didn’t complete these tests under the regulated test settings required for ENERGY STAR certification.
While I was at it, I wondered how many watts the charger consumes when it’s plugged into the socket but not connected to the laptop. Next, let’s take a look at the test’s results.
How many watts does a laptop charger use
When a laptop charger is plugged into an outlet but not plugged into the laptop, it can continue to use electricity.
Modern chargers are more efficient, decreasing and, in some cases, completely eliminating waste.
When the laptop charger I tested was put into the outlet rather than the laptop, it did not consume any electricity.
However, a word of caution is necessary. My energy monitor only measures 1 watt to two decimal places. As a result, the charger could be consuming a hundredth of a watt, but the energy monitor won’t detect it.
Power is consumed when the charger is hooked into the laptop. This is the situation “Off mode, where 0.33 watts per square meter were spent.
Do you need assistance selecting the correct laptop charger? Here’s where you can learn everything you need to know about laptop voltage, including safety considerations: Laptop charger voltage.
Sidenote: Many internet sources confuse the charger’s power / wattage rating with the number of watts it consumes. You may expect your charger to use very little electricity. In many / most circumstances, when a gadget is plugged into the charger but is still in Off mode, the device / charger will drain less than 1 watt (when the battery is already fully charged).
Okay, I’ve completed my real-world testing. Let’s return to the data I stated before “The gaming laptops are the outliers. Next, let’s take a quick check at the wattage of these.
How many watts does a gaming laptop use?
The power consumption of gaming laptops ranges from 35W to 320W, and in some cases even more. In non-gaming modes, the amount of watts utilized ranges from 0 watts in Off mode to roughly 20 watts in Idle mode.
Gaming laptops, on the other hand, require substantially more watts in high performance mode than standard laptops.
The Total Graphics Power (TGP) of ASUS gaming laptops, specifically their ROG variants, ranges from 35W to 150W, with 115W being the most frequent. With a dynamic increase, GPU power can range from 40 to 150 watts, with 130 watts being the most popular. Source
It’s not unrealistic to believe that off-the-shelf gaming laptops consume 2-5 times the power of a conventional laptop.
It’s easier to work with kWh when looking at the number of watts that laptops use over long periods of time. One kilowatt-hour equals 1,000 watts.
Let’s look at laptop power usage in kWh for convenience and to assist calculate the cost of running computers.
Laptop power consumption (kWh)
The table below shows how much energy laptops consume per day, month, and year.
The data in this table is similar to the data in the table above, and the usage assumptions are the same.
We can easily calculate the electricity cost using the power consumption in kWh. Assuming a 15-cent per-kWh price (the US average, according to Statista), the following is the result:
The statistics in the table above are the study’s average figures. The power usage ranges from very low to very high. Let’s look at these ranges, together with the most frequent power usage, to get a better idea of how much electricity laptops use and cost to run.
How much electricity does a laptop use? (kWh & $ ranges)
Laptops consume anywhere from 0.0063 to 0.2310 kWh per day, with 0.0471 kWh being the most typical.
The cost of running a laptop ranges from $0.000945 to $0.03465 each day, based on $0.15 per kWh. The most frequent daily operating cost for laptops is $0.007065.
Laptops use between 0.192 kWh and 7.025 kWh of electricity per month, with 1.433 kWh being the most common monthly usage.
The monthly cost of running a laptop ranges from $0.029 to $1.05 ($0.215 is the average monthly electricity bill).
Laptops consume between 2.3 and 84.3 kWh of electricity each year, with 17.2 kWh being the most typical.
The cost of running a laptop on power each year ranges from $0.345 to $12.645, with $2.58 being the most prevalent figure.
In a month, how much electricity does a laptop consume?
Electricity consumption is an important issue to consider when designing a laptop or tablet since it dictates how long it can run on a battery (without connecting the power plug). Every component in a laptop or tablet is designed to be energy efficient. Other power management options on laptops include: The CPU consumes 70-80 percent of the power in a laptop, whereas the rest of the components use very little. Laptops typically use 20-50 Watts of power, which can be reduced by using power saver modes.
Desktop computers, on the other hand, consume between 60 and 200 watts of power. A lot of it is determined by the screen type. The consumption of a CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) screen is higher than that of an LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) panel. When compared to a CRT panel, LCD screens can save up to 75% on electricity. A UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) is also required for a desktop to keep it functioning during power outages, which can consume a large amount of electricity.
How much does it cost to keep a laptop running for the entire day?
In the United Kingdom, how much electricity does a laptop consume each hour? A laptop normally consumes around 50 watts of power, or roughly 0.05 kWh. This means that if a laptop is turned on for eight hours a day, it will cost 5p per day to keep it running (based on a 12.5 p/kWh average energy unit cost).
What in a house consumes the most electricity?
The breakdown of energy use in a typical home is depicted in today’s infographic from Connect4Climate.
It displays the average annual cost of various appliances as well as the appliances that consume the most energy over the course of the year.
Modern convenience comes at a cost, and keeping all those air conditioners, freezers, chargers, and water heaters running is the third-largest energy demand in the US.
Here are the things in your house that consume the most energy:
- Cooling and heating account for 47% of total energy consumption.
- Water heater consumes 14% of total energy.
- 13 percent of energy is used by the washer and dryer.
- Lighting accounts for 12% of total energy use.
- Refrigerator: 4% of total energy consumption
- Electric oven: 34% energy consumption
- TV, DVD, and cable box: 3% of total energy consumption
- Dishwasher: 2% of total energy consumption
- Computer: 1% of total energy consumption
One of the simplest ways to save energy and money is to eliminate waste. Turn off “vampire electronics,” or devices that continue to draw power even when switched off. DVRs, laptop computers, printers, DVD players, central heating furnaces, routers and modems, phones, gaming consoles, televisions, and microwaves are all examples.
A penny saved is a cent earned, and being more energy efficient is excellent for your wallet and the environment, as Warren Buffett would undoubtedly agree.
How much energy does a laptop consume on a daily basis?
While notebooks and netbooks require less power than high-end laptops, the power consumption of a laptop varies depending on the screen size and specifications; normally, power consumption ranges from 20 to 100 watts when a laptop is powered by the battery.
When a laptop is charging while in use, its power usage increases by 10% to 20%. The average power usage of 14 to 15-inch laptops is reported to be 60 watts per hour, so a laptop utilizing 60 watts for 6 hours a day while plugged in will cost $0.0648 each day (if you are in NewYork).
How much does it cost to keep a computer running 24 hours a day, seven days a week?
For the example equation below, we’ll use an average of 13.3 cents per KW/h and a 24-hour runtime. In the tables below, we’ve split that down into eight and four hours every day. 5.180.62 cents per KW/h * 0.541 KW * 720 * 13.3 cents per KW/h = $51.81 per month! Monthly cost of running a PC (24 hours/day) if
What is the impact of a computer on your electricity bill?
A gaming PC’s typical annual energy consumption is roughly 1,400 kWh. This is equivalent to the power used by ten gaming consoles or six standard computers.
